[ open: all arise! ]

[vorbratta]

WHO: you. yes, you there. you're invited
WHAT: Sonia is throwing a big party, because everyone needs an excuse to get good and drunk together right now. And dancing. There is always dancing.
WHEN: Justinian, shortly after the return of the jungle crew
WHERE: The suite at the top of the mage tower
NOTES: ♫ have some party jams ♫

The month in the jungle was a long one, made longer by the total lack of any alcohol to mitigate the experience. Utterly unthinkable. Sonia is addressing a public need by throwing a grand party -- a public service, even. Besides, it's what she does. When was the last time she got to plan a party, anyway? Granted, this is not a Denerim soiree for the young nobility, but the venue doesn't matter. Only the people and the drinks, and Sonia is assuredly rich in both. It is also a fantastic excuse not to think about any of the bad things that have happened since she was last in Kirkwall.

The decoration in the residential suite at the top of the mage tower would be best classified as improvisational -- one of those drapes tacked along the wall for ambience may be a bedsheet -- but it's the spirit of the thing that counts. One makes do with what one has. In one corner are a few tables laden with spirits, some provided by Sonia, others by generous partygoers. There are a few Barra vineyard vintages in the mix, highlights of her personal collection, a testament to the celebration she considers tonight to be. There's a small selection of food nearby, mostly for snacking to go with the drinks, though guests are free to bring whatever they like to share.

And there is, of course, music. Someone here has brought a fiddle or a flute or a bunch of pots masquerading as a drum set. Maybe you've brought your very own a capella choir. Whatever the accompaniment, there's something to dance to. Sonia makes sure there is dancing.

Tonight is not for licking wounds or swapping grisly stories of terror and survival. Tonight is for feeling alive, getting properly and delightfully drunk, and having a good god damn time.

Comments

kostos | ota

[exequy]

Kostos appears in the doorway to the suite midway through the evening. He stays there for a moment, eyes sifting through the room's dancing and drinking occupants like he's taking inventory, and then makes a direct cut for the spirit-laden table near the food.

It takes some shifting and sniffing before he finds what he's looking for, but once he has, he turns to make a direct cut back toward the door, lifting the bottle toward the bulk of the partygoers in a little salute—maybe gratitude, maybe just meant as an explanation for what he's doing, which is definitely stealing their liquor and taking it back to his room like some sort of mannerless hurlock.

[sulahnan]

Athessa walks directly into Kostos, headed back into the party at the same moment that he's making off with that bottle.

"Heyyyyy! You're here!" She grabs his free hand and starts to pull him back into the suite. "Dance with me!"

[exequy]

The list of people who could do any of that without him turning outright cross is very short. Athessa is on it. But Kostos doesn't have to be cross to plant his feet and lean back to counter her pulling. He wiggles his stolen bottle. If stolen is the right word when he's taking it from a pile without being stopped. Anyway, he wiggles it, and makes a counter-offer: "Drink with me."

[sulahnan]

She'd do it even if he did get cross, but he does tend to be more fun when he isn't. Athessa lets his counter-lean rebound her loosely back toward him. Toe-to-toe, looking like she might just lean against him but not quite letting herself tip the last little bit. Her pout is angled up towards him, half-lidded gaze falling to his mouth.

Old habits die hard, huh.

"Compromise: dance first, drink after?"

[exequy]

“I don’t like dancing,” Kostos says.

He means it. Maybe there was only enough dancing-enjoyment in the womb for one person, and Nikos took it all, like a bastard. But he turns his hand to have hold of hers in answer. Maybe he’ll pull her somewhere.

“And I hate compromise.”

[sulahnan]

"Well, I would hate it if my friend thought that people were only coming to her party to steal the booze."

Athessa raises an eyebrow at him, but she makes no move to take her hand back, or reach for the bottle. "Maybe you and compromise oughta get reacquainted."

[exequy]

Kostos tucks the bottle in under his arm, just in case, and gives the dancers a wary look. They're currently doing something involving hopping.

"That is too much compromise," he says, gesturing toward them with his chin while they're mid-hop. "I would die."

[vorbratta]

And just as he turns back to the exit, Sonia suddenly appears in his path, surprisingly spry for a drunk woman. Her dark eyes are wide as if in outrage, but she's smiling nonetheless as she wags her glass at him.

"Kostos, are you trying to sneak out of here without sharing even one drink with the hostess? For shame, ser."

[exequy]

"It is polite in Nevarra," Kostos says, so seriously that it's plausible he actually expects to get away with that. Not plausible that it's actually a Nevarran custom, of course.

[vorbratta]

"We are not in Nevarra," Sonia says without missing a beat, "and no it is not." She reaches to pull a bottle from his haul, eyebrows arched. "Do you have any idea the value of this vintage? It is wasted in solitude." She smiles brightly, wiggling it from his grasp. "Share it with me instead."

[exequy]

Kostos' manners are terrible, but they've been curbed from outright barbarism by a well-heeled noble childhood and a succession of sedate mage towers. So he isn't quite awful enough to refuse to relinquish a bottle of wine when the hostess who provided it is the one taking it. He lets her have it.

But he says, "I am not pleasant company."

[vorbratta]

"That is subjective and hardly for you to judge," Sonia says airily, as she liberates the bottle from Kostos's possession. "You have hardly given yourself time to prove yourself unpleasant company." She smiles brightly at him, wagging the bottle. "Just one drink?"

[heirring]

Let us assume Kostos is a cat successfully herded for just long enough that at some point it becomes necessary to snag another bottle of wine from the (dwindling) collection of spirits, and that at the same time he takes a rather nice bottle by the neck someone else's hand falls on the same bottle's middle from the other side of the table.

"My apologies--" Wysteria, slightly flush in the face either from dancing or whatever was in her empty cup previously, raises her eyes. Her teeth snap shut around the back half of 'gies' and a considerable measure of that color runs first clear of her face and then returns at twofold strength.

"Enchanter."

Her hand is still on the bottle.

[exequy]

His grip tightens before he even knows who he's competing with. He hasn't endured all of this socializing to settle for his second choice of wine.

When he does realize—"Miss Poppell," he says in mirror of her tone. "Apology accepted."

[heirring]

She balks, and for a split second is on the verge of saying, I would never apologize to you, before remembering the exact words preceding her shock. Well, expresses the pinch of her mouth. Fine.

Her hand, however, remains where it is. She hasn't suffered through a month in the jungle to be less choosey about her choice of spirits now that the possibility is so immediately available to her.

"I must say, I'm surprised to see you here this evening. It seems somewhat out of turn."

[exequy]

"There's wine," he points out, and pulls their jointly-claimed bottle toward him in a way that's almost subtle, almost like he's just settling his arm into a more comfortable position and bringing the bottle along. Almost. "There are women."

Give him the bottle.

[heirring]

"I believe that is true of many places, Enchanter," is airy and light, and might easily be mistaken as perfectly innocuous were her hand slightly less willing to follow that small motion of the bottle. "However, I believe that you are something of a connoisseur are you not? Perhaps you might turn and refer to our company and give me your professional evaluation of which woman you find most handsome this evening."

No.

[galvanising]

Late in the night, long after Kostos has become firmly ensconced in the party against his wishes, Nell suddenly appears, thumping down onto the couch beside him with the weight of several more bottles of wine than the one she currently has in her hand.

"Hey, asshole."

[exequy]

He's past the point of escape, past the point of the riled-up sort of drunk that makes him more likely to cause a scene, into the point when moving from the couch seems like an unreasonably difficult task no matter who sits beside him. Or that's the excuse, anyway.

He doesn't look at her. He takes another drink, swallows slowly, and says, "Motherfucker," in the same grudging and deliberative tone he'd use to unenthusiastically acknowledge someone's presence by their surname.

[galvanising]

Nell tilts her head, too slow until it abruptly sags toward her shoulder, and then rolls up toward the ceiling, at which she squints. After a long moment she shrugs, letting the high push of her shoulder bump her head upright again.

"I think I'd know her if I saw her but I'm less sure than I'd like to be."

[exequy]

“I’m not sure I would, either.”

A maudlin confession, but he doesn’t sound maudlin about it. He’d have a better chance of recognizing her than most mages would have of recognizing their parents. His memories of her face from a decade and a half ago are fuzzy at best, but he knows she looks like Marisol, and—

And he looks sidelong at Nell. He thinks he’s still angry with her, but mostly he’s tired. Or drunk. Both.

“If you do ever fuck my mother, I will not rest until I’ve found yours.”

[galvanising]

Nell squints again for a moment as if confused by something, then shrugs to herself and rolls her head back toward Kostos again, this time her squint being of the focusing variety. She considers this promise for a moment, and then nods, solemnly. "That seems fair."

She tilts her head, squinting at him in yet another slightly different way. "I bet your mother is hot. Or-- what do they call it when it's a woman over forty. Handsome. Striking."

[tender]

"You can't take the best bottle all for yourself," is Derrica's light, easy objection. She appears in his path as if the crowd parted and spat her out. Her own cup is empty, hooked loosely in one finger.

"Stay. I won't make you dance with me if you fill my cup."

Potentially a false promise.

[exequy]

He inclines his head, considering her offer—not so much whether he believes the promise, because no one can make him dance. More whether or not she'll be obnoxious company in the meantime.

"I could fill your cup and leave," he offers.

[tender]

"You could."

And he might. Kostos will do as he pleases, regardless. Derrica understands this much about him, even in their limited acquaintance.

"But I'd like to talk with you, and it'll be better if we have that bottle between us while we do."